This article aims to present the diverse faces of fascism in the 20th and 21st centuries.

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FASCISM IN THE 20TH AND 21ST CENTURIES
Fernando Alcoforado*
In the twentieth century, the crises of capitalism have always resulted in social revolutions
aimed at overthrowing the capitalist system as occurred in Russia in 1917 with the
implantation of the socialist system or in counter-revolution with the implantation of
fascist dictatorships as occurred in Italy with Mussolini and Nazifascists as occurred in
Germany with Hitler. The humiliation imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles
after the First World War also contributed to the advance of Nazi-fascism in Germany.
Fascism and Nazism were based on strongly nationalist conceptions and on the
totalitarian exercise of power, therefore against the democratic and liberal system, and
repressive in the face of social democratic, socialist and communist ideas.
The fascism implanted in several countries during the 1920s and 1930s of the 20th century
was based on a strong, totalitarian state that claimed to embody the spirit of the people,
in the exercise of power by a single party whose authority was imposed through violence,
repression and political propaganda. The fascist leader is a figure who was above ordinary
men. Mussolini was called Il Duce, which derives from the Latin Dux (General) and
Hitler de Fuehrer (Conductor, Guide, Leader, Chief). Both were messianic and
authoritarian leaders, with a power that was exercised unilaterally without consultation
with anyone.
Mussolini and his fascist government adopted economic policy based on laissez-faire,
through the coordination of a liberal finance minister, Alberto De Stefani. His
administration reduced taxes, regulations, trade restrictions and sought to promote greater
competitiveness among companies. In addition, the rise of Fascism in 1922 like that of
Nazism by Adolf Hitler in Germany in 1933 was only possible with the collaboration and
financial support of large corporations. In Germany, Hitler had the support of the still
powerful today: BMW, Fiat, IG Farben (Bayer), Volkswagen, Siemens, IBM, Chase
Manhattan Bank, Allianz, and other media groups, which financed these regimes with the
aim of stopping the advance of Soviet socialism in Europe.
Neoclassical liberals, such as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, who gave rise to
the ideological current that has become hegemonic today, neoliberalism, also defended
fascism and its Nazi variant as political projects necessary to maintain the capitalist order.
This is what can be seen in this statement by Friedrich Hayek about his impression of
Nazism: “Hitler did not have to destroy democracy; he limited himself to taking
advantage of his decay and at the critical moment he obtained the support of many who,
although they detested him, considered him the only man strong enough to set things in
motion” (HAYEK, Friedrich. O caminho da servidão (The path of serfdom). 5. ed. Rio
de Janeiro: Instituto Liberal, 1990]. Contrary to what Hayek said, Hitler destroyed
democracy in Germany. Ludwig von Mises said: “The actions of fascists and other parties
that corresponded to him were emotional reactions, evoked by indignation at the actions
perpetrated by the Bolsheviks and Communists. (…) Against the weapons of the
Bolsheviks, the same weapons should be used in retaliation, and it would be a mistake to
show weakness in the face of the murderers. Never a liberal did question this” [VON
MISES, Ludwig. Liberalismo – Segundo a Tradição Clássica (Liberalism - According to
Classical Tradition). São Paulo: Instituto Ludwig von Mises Brasil, 2010].
In the 21st century, the economic crisis of the world capitalist system that broke out in
2008 in the United States led the European Union to economic stagnation with serious
political and social consequences. This crisis gave rise to the strengthening of extreme

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right political parties in several countries. The rise of far-right parties is taking place in
much of Europe. With Nazifascist or nationalist inclinations, most of these parties defend
the end of the European Union, the end of the Euro, the strengthening of the unity and
identity of countries, more radical policies against immigrants, criticize the financial
rescue of countries in crisis, are against rights of homosexuals, abortion, liberalism and
globalization, and fight what they call Islamization [CUNHA, Carolina. Extrema direita:
Eleições no Parlamento Europeu refletem avanço do conservadorismo (Far right:
Elections in the European Parliament reflect advances in conservatism). Published on
the website <http://vestibular.uol.com.br/resumo-das-disciplinas/atualidades/extrema-
direita-na-europa-resultado-das-eleicoes-no-parlamento-europeu-reflete-avanco-do-
conservadorismo.htm>, 2014].
The main reasons for the rise of the extreme right parties in Europe would be the decline
in the welfare state, which constituted a kind of common European identity after the
Second World War, the current financial crisis, the existence of more than 18.2 million
of unemployed people on the continent, the resentment and disbelief of the population in
politicians coupled with the desire for change. What draws attention is the growing
adhesion of young Europeans to nationalist movements, mainly through the internet.
Young people are increasingly critical of their leaders and the European Union, concerned
about the future (employment and education), cultural identity and Islamic influence in
Europe.
Krugman says worse things are already happening like the rise of the far right in Austria,
Finland, Hungary and the poor countries of Central and Eastern Europe where democratic
institutions are being undermined. All this means, in practice, the possibility of the rise
of fascism and dictatorships in Europe to contain the social uprisings that are multiplying
in the same way that happened after the great depression of 1929 that created the
conditions for the advent of Nazism and exception regimes in various parts of the world
[KRUGMAN, Paul. É hora de começar a chamar a atual situação de crises como ela é:
uma depressão (It is time to start calling the current crisis situation as it is: a depression).
Published on the website <http://noticias.uol.com.br/blogs-colunas/colunas-do-new-
york-times/paul-krugman/2011/12/13/e-hora-de-comecar-a-chamar-a-atual-situacao-de-
crises-como-ela-e-uma-depressao.jhtm>, 2011].
In the United States, the Tea Party, a faction of the Republican Party, operates on an "anti-
Semitic, racist and reactionary" platform. The Tea Party's real banner is related to
nationalism and race. The Tea Party is already running a multimillion-dollar network
made up of large companies, non-party organizations and political committees. In
September 2009, Viomundo published a post by Sara Robinson, in which she warned of
the rise of fascism in the United States. Robinson identified, based on the work of the
historian Robert Paxton (The anatomy of fascism. New York: Vintage Books, 2005), at
what stage American fascism was in, and reached the disturbing conclusion that, once the
alliance between a capitalist elite and a far-right "shock troop" consolidated, nothing
could stop a fascist rise and its coming to power [PEGINO, Paulo Ferraresi. Tea Party -
ascensão do fascismo nos EUA (e o Brasil?) (Tea Party - rise of fascism in the USA (and
Brazil?)). Published on the website <http://www.advivo.com.br/blog/paulo-ferraresi-
pegino/tea-party-ascensao-do-fascismo-nos-eua-e-o-brasil>, 2010].
According to Paxton, fascism emerges in search of some kind of nationalist renewal
(PAXTON, Robert. The anatomy of fascism. New York: Vintage Books, 2005). This is
the case of the United States in the face of an insurmountable economic crisis such as the

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current one, the compromise of the American way of life and the loss of its global
hegemony to China. According to Paxton, fascism only grows on the shaky ground of a
mature democracy in crisis, as is the case in the United States. This view was fully
embraced by the Republican Party, which now defines itself in this line. At this stage, he
is openly racist, sexist, repressive, exclusionary and permanently addicted to the politics
of fear and hatred, as he did during the George W. Bush administration and which is being
deepened in the Donald Trump administration. The rise of fascism under the command
of Donald Trump in the United States resulted, fundamentally, from his economic decline
and the loss of his hegemony on the world stage in a very short time.
In the book Capitalism, Hegemony and Violence in the Age of Drones, published by
Springer Nature in 2018, Norman Pollack, who was professor emeritus of history at
Michigan State University, states that "fascism in the United States, at any gestational
stage, it advances against the people. ”In Pollack's view, fascism is more than a
historically temporary political arrangement, as in Germany, Italy, Japan and other
countries between the two great world wars. Fascism is a general social state. Pollack
says that fascism does not require concentration camp, persecution or torture, although
its threat and potential will always remain present. Instead, fascism can be apprehended
through various indices such as, for example, extreme concentration of wealth, co-
partnership between business and governments, as a structural interpenetration of
powerful institutions that promote the monopolist capital, restricts union organization and
labor militancy and creates a strong state, based on military power and commercial
supremacy; also encouraging a complacent mass base, submissive to power and wealth,
tied to ideological knots through false conscience and intimidation, intellectually broken
through media, propaganda and signs from above.
Fascism was leveraged in the United States with the Bush administration and maintained
by the Obama administration when the violation of communication secrecy and intrusive
surveillance in people's lives became widespread; each library was obliged to inform the
FBI of the list of books requested, a rule that applies even to universities; and a list of
internal enemies was created, which, for example, cannot travel by air, and which today
brings together tens of thousands of names (around 100,000 are spoken), a good number
of university dissidents, pacifists, etc. Lists like these are typical of totalitarian regimes.
Gradually the siege is closed to journalists, teachers, pastors, activists and dozens of
others. In practice, the universal right of habeas corpus was extinguished.
The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon carried out by Saudi fighters
commanded by Osama bin Laden on 9/11/2001, was the necessary event (equivalent to
the fire of the German Reichstag in Hitler's Germany to leverage Nazism) for the devices
to fascists took action in the United States during the George W. Bush administration. For
internal use, a law with hundreds of articles had already been drafted, the Patriot Act,
with almost unanimous approval from Congress, which abolished the country's main
democratic achievements. Among other measures, an internal security structure, the
Department of Homeland Security, was created in addition to the already abundant
repression apparatus, for the repression of terrorists and internal threats to order, with a
2008 budget of 52 billion dollars.
In the perspective of the Patriot Act, a march for peace is terrorist, since the country is at
war with terror and even a demonstration that disrupts traffic can be classified as a serious
disturbance of the order. Government forces are authorized to arrest anyone, anywhere in

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the world (CIA and military) and also in the country, without any justification, to keep
them imprisoned without communication with family members or lawyers and without
charge for an indefinite period, and to move them it to any of its prisons, known or secret,
in various countries, or even some prison ships, all of these places where torture and
murder with absolute impunity, as has been documented in the prisons of the Baghram
base in Afghanistan , Abu Ghraib, Iraq, and the infamous maximum security prison at
Guantánamo, on the eastern tip of Cuba. It is a set of fascist dispositions that make Hitler's
terror apparatus envious.
This whole situation of espionage of the population and the government of several
countries by the American government shows one of the facets of the advance of fascism
in the United States. George W. Bush's rise to power made it possible for a cluster of
high-ranking politicians and military personnel, professional analysts and strategists,
representatives of big finance and the “military-industrial complex” to get involved in big
government decisions after the World Trade Center attack. The circle of right-wing
intellectuals gathered under the label neoconservatives or “neocons”, always present in
the country's history, quickly consolidated and began to dictate the policies of the
American government with the rise to power of George W. Bush.
One of the characteristics of the “neocons” is the disregard for laws and practices already
consolidated and consecrated among countries and organizations. In foreign policy, a new
doctrine has replaced the old concepts of peoples' self-determination, non-aggression,
respect for international law and UN authority, etc. with the creation of pseudo-legal
monsters such as the “preventive wars” proposal, aggression against countries against the
decisions of the UN Security Council and against powers that threatened or even remotely
threatened the hegemony of the United States in the world, whose dominant circles they
are in charge of framing like friends and enemies according to their interests. Another
characteristic of the discourse and practice of the “neocons” members of the United States
government is the fabrication of the false truth based on lessons, omissions and lies. This
was the way found to base the decision to invade Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
Fascism is reinforced in the United States with Donald Trump who said he is the voice
"of those who work hard while no one speaks for them" victims of a "manipulated system"
that benefit only "elites". Trump introduced himself as the "people's champion", the only
one capable of changing everything. The rise of fascism under the command of Donald
Trump in the United States resulted, fundamentally, from his economic decline and the
loss of his hegemony on the world stage in a very short time. All world relations in the
United States have changed profoundly in recent times, being obliged to share power on
a global scale with other countries. The era when the United States sought to impose its
will on the international scene in the economic and military spheres is over. This is what
happened after the Barack Obama administration. The general crisis of the world
capitalist system is accelerating long-term geopolitical change, heralding the decline of
American power. Donald Trump represents a reaction to reverse this trend. Its
performance is leading, in practice, to the consolidation of fascism in the United States.
In the contemporary era of economic and financial globalization, the most ominous of all
fascisms arises, which encompasses the entire planet. The new fascism aims to defend
the interests of the dominant neoliberal world capitalist system, which is defined by the
omnipresence of its mercantile ideology that occupies all the space and all sectors of life
at the same time. This ideology reduced all human relations to mercantile relations and

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considers our planet as a simple commodity. The only right that the neoliberal world
capitalist system recognizes is the right to private property. The only god he worships is
money. The omnipresence of neo-fascist neoliberal ideology is manifested in the cult of
money, in the single party disguised as parliamentary pluralism, in the absence of visible
opposition and in repression in all forms against the will to transform man and the world.
This is the true face of modern fascism that needs to be called by its true name: totalitarian
world capitalist system. The totalitarian capitalist system has accomplished what no
totalitarianism has managed to do before: to unify the world in its image. Today there is
no longer possible exile.
In today's Brazil, the totalitarian world capitalist system is represented by the neo-fascist
government of Jair Bolsonaro, which manifests itself with its neoliberal economic
policies and the repression against social movements. In the escalation of fascism in
Brazil, an alliance was made between the conservative elite and the fascists which was
consummated with the support of the conservative elite to the candidate Jair Bolsonaro
for the Presidency of the Republic who has a typically fascist government proposal
because his speech is based on the cult explicit order, state violence, authoritarian
government practices, social contempt for vulnerable and fragile groups and anti-
communism. The conservative elite and fascists took control of the country with the
victory of Jair Bolsonaro in the October 2018 elections.
In this context of bleak perspectives, it is urgent to attack the evil of barbarism at the root
with the construction of a new world order to replace the dominant capitalist order that
generates the attacks on Civilization in all quarters of the Earth. The barbarism
represented by neo-fascism needs to be faced by humanity. The living forces defending
of Civilization need to come together across the planet to oppose the forces of Barbarism.
Humanity's future depends on the outcome of this confrontation.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 80, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System,
member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional
Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of
strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the
books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem
Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os
condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de
Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora
Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos
na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social
Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG,
Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica,
Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate
ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores
Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo
e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As
Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba,
2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua
convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro
para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).